Bulldogs Begin New Year at Cornell

NEW HAVEN, Conn. – This Monday the Yale women's swimming and diving team will kick off competition in 2013 with a dual meet again Cornell. The Bulldogs spent the past week at a training camp in Cocoa Beach, Fla., and having returned to the Northeast will face off against the Big Red as they get closer to the Ivy League Championships at the end of February.

Racing in 2012 got the Bulldogs off to a great start. The team began the 2012-13 season with three successful scrimmages against Colgate, Lehigh and SCSU, followed by a win against Columbia in Yale's home opener. The Bulldogs then took first place at the Terrier Invitational in Boston, and placed second behind Princeton at the Brown Invitational. Already the team has taken down four school records, and is poised to begin 2013 with a lot of fitness added in Florida.

"We enjoyed a productive and consistent week of training in Florida," said Robert J.H. Kiphuth Head Coach Jim Henry. "It was great to have some time together as a team to discover our strengths and more importantly improve the areas that need to be addressed before the championship season. We will use that week of training and focus as a springboard into our upcoming Ivy dual meets as well as the Ivy and NCAA Championships. I believe the team is confident that we will be ready to perform at the end of the year and the week in Cocoa Beach certainly helped."

The Big Red have seen four Ivy League teams so far this season and came up with losses against all of them. In two tri-meets in November Cornell lost to Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn and Princeton, but most recently the Big Red found success at Ithaca College's Bomber Invitational. At the three-day meet Cornell had a comfortable win over second-place Colgate to take first out of 11 total teams.

Last year the Bulldogs raced against Cornell at home for senior day and pulled off a win with a score of 189.5-93.5. The class of 2013 has not lost to Cornell in dual competition and the hope is that on Monday the seniors can keep that streak alive.

The meet will take place on Jan. 7 at Cornell's Teagle Hall Pool. Diving is set to begin at 11:00 a.m. and swimming at 12:50 p.m.